I was in my truck waiting for the local shoe store to open, and flipping through news articles on my phone when I ran across this
The entire article rubs on my nerves, but there are some spots that rub them more then others.
But it could at least be said of the face-off with Cheney that (President) Obama was engaged in the spoken version of a point-counterpoint editorial. He just used his presidential prerogative to claim the top of the page. The bid to preempt the Republican debate, though, was just about politics.
No where in the article does it mention that Wednesday is the first day that congress is back in session(although if you look closely, they do hint that Wednesday is Congress's first day back, but given the main audience of Fox News...
), and instead make it seem like Obama did this just to block the republican debate.
If the White House did what protocol demands and consulted with the speaker, it would have given Boehner the chance to upend their plan in private: “Gee, I’m not really a Packers fan, but I kinda wanted to see my party’s presidential debate, maybe Thursday?”
So the whiz kids at the White House figured they could embarrass Boehner into accepting the date: a quick call to notify the speaker of the request and then, blamo, a public announcement. But Boehner was blunt, not clever, and just did in public what he would have done in private: “Gee…” Once the president had played politics with his request, it gave Boehner all the cover he needed to politicize his response.
So even though President Obama told Boehner ahead of time, and Boehner has confirmed that he knew ahead of time and did not object to it when asked Fox News paints Bohner the victim here and President Obama as some type of political bully. All the spinning done in this story is making my head hurt. I knew Fox News was out of it, but really? I think I'm going to lie down for a bit after reading this.